Legal Materials: The blue pages of the Bluebook provide an overview of key primary legal materials. Also check out German Business and Commercial Laws: Guide to Translations into English and Select Auxiliary Sources by Martina Kammer and Anne Scharrenberg and/or Legal Research in Germany between Print and Electronic Media: An Overview by Rita Exter and Martina Kammer.
The Civil Code of Germany is posted in English by the German Federal Ministry of Justice.
For inter-library loans or to get photocopies of German legal materials from U.S. sources, search OCLC's WorldCat and/or the catalogs of large law libraries with international collections (NYU, Columbia, Harvard, etc.).
For questions, try the Germany.info (202 471-5532). Or visit the German Resources links posted by the Universitat Karlsruhe.
Subscription Services: The Foreign Law Guide by Reynolds and Flores discusses the country's primary legal materials and lists the treatises available in various subject areas. RIA's World Wide Tax Law Service on Checkpoint has English translations of French corporate, commercial, tax and other business-related laws.
Business Informations: Profiles of German companies are available from Dialog (File 529), the Creditreform database on Lexis (GERMAN;VVCDCO) and SkyMinder. SkyMinder also provides credit reports on German companies. Other useful Lexis databases include a company balance sheet database (GERMAN;CRBSGE), a directory of German exporters (GERMAN;BDIDEN) and directory of German electronics companies (GERMAN;ZVEIEN).
You can retrieve German corporate filings from the elektronischen Bundesanzeiger (GmbHs and AGs) and Leo.